No Such Thing as Too Young

Hold me close, don’t let go,
Watch me burn.
“Hospital for Souls” – Bring Me the Horizon

“Hey,” I said to Vic as I met him outside the school on Friday morning. “Wow, you look like shit. You okay?”

“Yeah, sure, I’m fine.” He didn’t look fine. His eyes were really bloodshot and his wrinkled clothes were the same as yesterday’s, like he’d slept in them.

“What were you doing yesterday? How much sleep did you get last night?”

“I… I dunno. I couldn’t sleep,” he mumbled.

“Alright, well, let’s get to class,” I said, taking his hand. He didn’t smell great either, so I guess he hadn’t showered. I was kinda worried, but he gets like this sometimes. It’s like he just forgets to take care of himself.

It was probably just because we had a kinda crappy day yesterday, dealing with shitty comments about us being fags and even getting shoved around a bit by some older guys. Word had spread about Vic and I pretty quickly since Justin’s not too good at keeping secrets. It’s been about two weeks since everyone started finding out, and people still feel the need to be assholes to us about it. I can usually brush it off pretty well, but Vic often ends up like he is now. I hate seeing him like this, it just makes me worried and upset.

“Whoa, what’s wrong, Vic?” Justin exclaimed as we met up with him inside the doors. Vic just shrugged. Justin caught my eye and gave me a meaningful look. I guess he was trying to tell me something was up, but I was pretty sure that Vic had just had a bad night’s sleep after a shitty day. But was I just telling myself this because I didn’t want to believe something was wrong? I was a bit worried about him; I always am. But I was still pretty sure he was okay. Maybe I should talk to him anyways, just to check up on him. I’d feel awful if something was wrong and I’d just dismissed it as him being his usual self.

“Justin, we’re gonna go to the bathroom. See you in class, okay?” I said, taking Vic’s hand and pulling him towards the bathrooms.

“Yeah, see you guys.” Justin was one of the only friends that had stuck around with us when everyone found out Vic and I were dating, so we’d been spending a bit more time with him lately. Everyone got too weirded out and awkward, which I was pretty upset about since I’d been friends with some of those guys for year. I guess this is how you find your true friends though, right?

“Alright, what’s up?” I said once we were inside the quiet bathroom. Vic just shrugged.

“Didn’t sleep well.”

“Are you okay?”

“Oh my god, why are you being so pushy!?” Vic exclaimed.

“I- I- I’m sorry, I-” I stuttered, taken aback by his sudden outburst.

“Just stop being nosy and quit pressuring me! I’m fine, okay!?” Vic pushed past me and stormed out of the bathroom.

“Vic, wait!” I called. But he’d already gone. What the fuck was his problem today?

I hurried to class and found Vic sitting next to Justin, his head resting on his hand. I sat in front of them and turned to the front without saying a word.

Vic spent the rest of the day acting weird and distant and I had no idea what the fuck was wrong. I was pissed at him for yelling at me in the bathroom like that, but at the same time I was still worried about him. I figured I might try texting him that night to see if he’d cooled down and wanted to talk about it.

That afternoon, I was watching TV alone in the lounge room when there was a knock on the door. I opened the door, thinking it might be Vic here to apologise, when I was unexpectedly greeted by his brother.

“Hi, I need to talk to you,” said Mike.

“Um, okay. Come on in,” I replied. What was he doing here? I haven’t had much to do with him at all except for that night when we both had to drag Vic back to his house.

I turned the TV off and sat back down on the couch, gesturing for him to do the same.

“I need to have a word with you about Vic,” he said sternly. I got kinda worried. Was he okay? Did I do something wrong?

“Okay, so you’re Vic’s first boyfriend and I know you mean a lot to him. Now, it’s only been two weeks and he came home today acting real weird and snappy. I came here to make sure you’ve been treating him right and you haven’t tried to force him into anything, or cheated on him, or hurt him in any way. Because if you have, you’ll be sorry.”

“I swear I haven’t,” I said, surprised and kind of offended.

“I hope not. Vic’s a danger to himself; you’ve already seen the way he drinks and I don’t want to even consider that the way he’s been acting might be because he’s fallen back into his older habits.”

“Uh… what old habits?”

“You know, his drug habits. Um… you know about that, right?”

My stomach tightened and I shook my head.

“Uh, I probably shouldn’t be telling you about this then…”

I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

“Just tell me what drugs he did, and what the symptoms are.”

“He was addicted to heroin. He’d get red eyes and sometimes he’d get kinda loud and hyper, but other times he’d be falling asleep and really spaced out and weird. Sometimes he’d get angry, and that’s why I’m worried.” He’d started to look really concerned. “Have you noticed anything?”

“Yeah, I have. We gotta go talk to him; right now.” Mike nodded.

We set off walking at a fast pace to Vic and Mike’s house.

“So, what’ve you noticed?”

“It’s not often,” I began. “But some days it’s like he’s completely different. He’ll fall asleep and zone out in class when he’s usually really focused, or he’ll act more confident than usual or something. And today he got really pissed at me and was weird all day.”

“That sounds like what happens when he’s taken it. If it’s not often then hopefully the situation isn’t as bad as last time.”

I desperately wanted to know the story of what happened the last time, but I felt like it would be better to ask Vic in person and let him tell me instead of hearing a shortened version from his brother. Plus, I felt like it would be a bit mean to make Mike relive the experience in the current situation.

We arrived after about half an hour of walking and we wasted no time in going inside the house and heading towards Vic’s bedroom. But at the bottom of the staircase, Mike stopped, looking nervous.

“Um… I think it might be better for you to talk to him alone at first. He’s going to be really mad at me for telling you, so it’s probably better if I stay down here and let him talk it out with you and cool down a bit before talking to me.”

“I’ll make sure you get filled in on how he is,” I assured him. I could tell how worried he was and how much he wanted to know if his brother was okay. It kind of made me wish I had a brother to look out for me the way they look out for each other.

I headed up the stairs and softly knocked on Vic’s door before gently swinging it open to reveal Vic asleep on his bed, even though it was only about five o clock. I went over and touched his shoulder lightly. “Vic?”

He woke up immediately, rolling over to face me with bleary eyes.

“Vic, we need to talk. I know about… about your addiction.” His face completely dropped and he jumped to his feet.

“How did you… It was Mike, wasn’t it? I’ll kill him,” he said, pushing past me and heading for the door.

“Wait!” I said, grabbing his arm and pulling him back. “Don’t be angry at him, he didn’t mean any harm. We need to talk first. Please?”

Vic sighed. “Fine. Let’s go out to the tree.” He headed out the door and went ahead of me down the stairs without another word. I’d never seen him this angry, it was frightening.

I hurried after him and caught up just as he was climbing up the tall maple tree the way he always does. The leaves were more brown than orange now, since it was the middle of November. The sky was almost completely dark and a cold wind was blowing across the yard, making me shiver.

I heaved myself up through the branches to sit next to Vic in his branch.

“So,” he said emotionlessly. “Tell me how you found out.”

“Well, Mike came over to warn me not to break your heart and stuff. He said he didn’t want you falling back into your old drug habits if I hurt you too badly. He didn’t realise I didn’t know, he just assumed you’d told me.”

“What else did he tell you?”

“Not much. Just that you had a heroin addiction and then some of your symptoms.”

“So I guess I better tell you the full story now, huh.” I shrugged.

He sighed. “Okay. Well, I wasn’t real happy at my old school. I didn’t have any friends, I was bullied for being gay, and my parents acted like they didn’t care about me at all. I didn’t know what to do; I kinda wanted to die. So I started drinking a lot, and when someone offered me some heroin, I took it. I really liked the way it made me feel, so I figured it had to be a better alternative to dying, right? I didn’t have much money so I started busking on the streets, singing and playing guitar. I also stole from my parents a bit. I didn’t earn too much, but just enough to pay for the shitty cheap heroin. I got addicted. My family didn’t even notice that anything was up. My parents never notice anything and Mike and I didn’t really have anything to do with each other back then either. But then after one particularly shitty day at school I went home and took more than usual, and I ended up overdosing. Mike found me in my bedroom in a really bad way, and my parents got me to the hospital just in time. They were really mad. They decided that it was because I had friends that were a bad influence on me and it’d be better if they moved me to another school. So they sent me to your school, hoping that it’d break my addiction.”

“But… it didn’t, did it?” I said softly.

“Not really. But I haven’t been doing it as much since I met you. You kinda made me realise that I don’t want to die. I didn’t want to stop, but I’m scared to die now. I don’t want to leave you.”

I wrapped my arms around him and kissed him, almost desperately. “I don’t want to lose you,” I whispered as I pulled back, wiping away tears with the back of my hand. Vic started to cry too when he saw my tears.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, his voice cracking.

“Why… why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was too scared. I didn’t have the guts to tell you that I nearly died because of my own stupidity, because I was afraid I’d upset you too much, or that I’d lose you.”

“You should have told me.” I leaned my head against his, tears running down my cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“How much have you taken today?”

“I took a fair bit last night, and a little more this morning. Not enough to overdose, but… you know.”

I took his arm and pulled up his sleeve, my eyes tearing up as it revealed red dots along his skin which I knew were injection sites.

“Can you promise me that you’ll try and stop? Look me in the eye and promise me.”

He lifted his head and met my gaze with his dark eyes. “I’ll… I’ll try. I promise I’ll try.”